807: Eight Fights

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nadia's family is split between Russia and Ukraine, which is pretty common. And when Russia invaded Ukraine, it didn’t just start fighting on the battlefield. It sparked family conflict, too. An intimate story of the war from writer Masha Gessen.

Prologue: An extended family, and eight fights. (1 minutes)
Fight #1: Luka’s parents – Nadia and Karen – try to figure out where to take him once war breaks out. (6 minutes)
Fight #2: Nadia and Karen have been arguing over Russian-ness since they needed to pick a school for Luka. (10 minutes)
Fights #3 and #4: Nadia remembers the times that Luka’s father would suggest going to Crimea for vacation, as if it wasn’t Ukrainian land occupied by Russia. And she remembers a present that Karen once gave Luka––the sort which had to be smuggled into the country. (6 minutes)
Fight #5: Nadia tells the story of her father, Alex, who lives near Bucha, and how differently he and she view the Russian atrocities there. (10 minutes)
Fight #6: Nadia tells the story of her mother, who lives in Russia, and how she won’t do the one thing Nadia keeps asking her to do. (2 minutes)
Fight #7: Karen sends Nadia a photo which drives them to a final showdown. (12 minutes)
Fight #8: Nadia’s step-father works for the Russian government. How to manage that? (4 minutes)
Epilogue: Nadia and Karen’s son, Luka, who most of these fights are about, gets the last word. (3 minutes)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show.
0:05.4	If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
0:10.6	For WB Easy Chicago, it's this American Life, I'm Eric Glass.
0:15.6	Back in the winter of 2022, in the days and weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, there's
0:20.2	one thing that most Ukrainians and most Russians had in common.
0:23.6	They both insisted that war was impossible, or was unbelievable.
0:28.8	One reason it was unbelievable was that many families, possibly most families on either
0:33.2	side of the border, have family members in the other country.
0:37.2	Many Russians have some Ukrainian roots.
0:39.7	Many Ukrainians have spent time living in Russia.
0:42.7	Even President Zelensky, like many Ukrainians, grew up speaking Russian.
0:46.5	He had a career in Russia, starred in Russian movies, performed comedy for Russian audiences,
0:51.9	even Putin's seen him perform, called him a good actor years ago.
0:56.8	So when Russians did start the war, it wasn't just on the battlefield, or in the airspace
1:01.3	over Ukrainian cities, it was within families.
1:05.8	This is something I had no idea about.
1:07.9	The way a conflict like this might take the normal disagreements between people and blow
1:11.3	them up.
1:12.3	When you think about it, of course, right, it was the writer Masha Gessen, who explained this
1:18.0	to me.
1:19.0	Masha was born in Moscow, moved to the United States as a teenager with their family, then moved
1:24.1	back to Russia as an adult to work as a journalist.
	...

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